Burning Wet Waste: Environmental Particularity, Material Specificity, and the Universality of Infrastructure

Abstract

The problem of plastic waste accumulating in the environment has become ubiquitous in recent years. One way in which urban governments are looking to solve this issue is by investing one of several thermodynamic technologies that fall under the umbrella term ‘waste-to-energy’. The drawback of such technologies is that the waste stream must be consistent in quality and quantity. By drawing on ethnographic research with environmental activists in Kochi, South India, I demonstrate that particular environmental and material conditions—in this case Kochi’s immense wetness—confound the supposed universality of such infrastructures. Querying waste infrastructures in this way also leads to insights that suggest that investing in infrastructures to address issues of plastic waste often deepen attachments to plastic economies of capitalist accumulation. I ultimately argue that addressing environmental and social concerns about plastic waste means broadening what is relevant to infrastructural interventions in urban environmental governance.